Modern transportation systems have revolutionized society by enabling people to travel to and from almost any location in the world. People today often travel for business or pleasure by land, sea, and air. Additionally, businesses rely on transportation systems for the efficient transfer of goods and services throughout the world. Other organizations, such as militaries, also depend on vehicles such as aircraft, naval vessels, and trucks for transporting men and supplies.
As our society continues to become more mobile, it has become increasingly important to find safer and more effective ways of transporting people. Unfortunately, accidents still pose a major threat to the welfare of travelers. To illustrate, the National Center for Statistics and Analysis (NCSA) estimates that approximately 41,000 people were killed due to automobile accidents in the United States during 2001. Furthermore, aircraft and boating accidents also occur every year, resulting in significant loss of life.
Many accidents involving vehicles may be preventable if a user operating the vehicle is properly warned of an impending danger. For example, many automobile accidents occur when drivers accidentally allow their vehicle to veer off the road. This may happen, for example, if a driver falls asleep or otherwise loses consciousness while driving. Additionally, a number of aircraft crashes may occur when a pilot accidentally veers from a desired flight path, such as when visibility is poor during inclement weather.
Presently, rumble strips are often used to alert automobile drivers that their vehicles are drifting off a road. Such rumble strips may be a series of grooves in the road that cause an automobile to vibrate and its tires to emit a “rumbling” sound as they pass over the strip. This vibration and sound alert the driver that the vehicle has deviated from the road, and the driver may then correct the motion of the vehicle.
Although existing rumble strips and other user alert systems reduce the risk of an accident, they may also include a number of disadvantages. First, existing real rumble strips are limited to use on land, and therefore, cannot be used with aircraft or ships. Additionally, such rumble strips may not accurately provide a user with the direction that a vehicle has deviated from a path. Thus, a user may have to determine the direction of the deviation after hearing the rumbling sound or feeling the vibration caused by the rumble strip. In a potential crash situation, the extra fraction of a second that it takes a user to determine the direction of the deviation may be the difference between life and death.
Accordingly, it is desirable to have a system and method for alerting a user operating a vehicle of an impending danger that overcomes the above deficiencies associated with the prior art. This may be achieved by using virtual rumble strips with spatial audio alert signals.